Andromeda’s Core
Image Details:
The Andromeda Galaxy is frequently targeted by Northern Hemisphere astrophotographers and is well-placed in the mid-Autumn, though it is still visible as Winter arrives. This capture used an SCT with a much smaller field of view than typical for this target. Andromeda covers about 6-8 times the width of the Full Moon in our sky and as such requires fairly wide focal lengths to capture the galaxy in its entirety. However, the core has detail which can be difficult to isolate given that it also glows very brightly, and striking a balance between the two can be difficult at the typically wider focal lengths in use. I side-stepped this by simply ignoring the rest of the galaxy, trading longer exposures to capture the fainter details on the galactic edges for pursuit of the core itself.
Such a closeup has been a longtime goal of mine and I will undoubtably revisit this idea in the next few years as the overall capture was not of very high quality. The narrowband in particular will require much more total integration for a better signal-to-noise ratio; Oiii was also captured but the data was abandoned since none of the star-forming pockets of the spiral arms (seen as the pink details in the photo) were visible, leaving me only with Hydrogen-Alpha to ‘enhance’ the broadband imagery.
Equipment:
Celestron C8 + Reducer (1280mm Focal Length, F/6.3)
ZWO ASI1600MM-P, ZWO Filters
ZWO AM5N Mount
Autoguiding: ZWO Off-Axis Guider + QHY178M
Exposures:
Luminance: 314 x 30” (Total: 2h 37m)
Red, Green, Blue: 154, 159, 156 x 60” (Total: 7h 49m)
Hydrogen-Alpha 7nm: 44 x 300” (3h 40m total)
Misc Details:
Capture Software: N.I.N.A. (capture), PHD2 (guiding), Pegasus Pocket Powerbox (dew heater control, power management)
Processing Software: PixInsight
Taken from: Wichita, KS, Bortle 5
Capture Dates: 6-10 December, 2024
